noun, feminine/maɾiˈwana/
marijuana
Synonyms: cannabis, cáñamo, bareta, zacate
Unknown. The OED (as of 2024) traces it to a Mexican Spanish mariguana, mentioning it has been suggested to come from a Nahuatl *mallihuan (glossed as "prisoner") — however, this is an impossible word in Nahuatl, bearing both absolutive -li and possessive plural -huān, and without a possessive prefix, cf. mālli (“captive”), nomālhuān (“my captives”). At any rate, linguist Jason D. Haugen finds no semantic basis for an etymological connection, suggesting the phonetic similarity may be "a case of